1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method and system for servicing a wireless communication network in general, and in particular to a method and system for servicing a mobile telephone communication network. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for discarding radio link protocol frames within a code division multiple access (CDMA) mobile telephone communication network.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A CDMA mobile telephone communication network is an integrated network comprising a land-based wireline telephone network and a composite wired-wireless network. The land-based wireline network is the traditional telephone system in which each telephone subscriber is connected to a central switching network commonly known as the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The composite wire-wireless network is the basis of today""s mobile telephone communication network.
Within a CDMA mobile telephone communication network, data transmission between a mobile station and a base station controller is accomplished via an air link (or a radio link). Before data transmission, each data packet from an application is typically divided into multiple smaller frames. If a frame happens to be lost during the transmission, an Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) service is commonly available for recovering the lost frame from the air link. An example of such ARQ service is the radio link protocol (RLP) as detailed in IS-99. The ARQ service generally performs a limited number of re-transmissions to attempt to send the lost frame to its destination. If the lost frame cannot be transmitted after the completion of a limited number of retransmission trials, the data packet (to which the lost frame belongs) becomes corrupted, and the entire data packet will have to be re-transmitted. The present invention provides an improved method and system for handling lost frames during an unsuccessful data transmission within a CDMA mobile telephone communication network.
A code division multiple access (CDMA) mobile telephone communication network includes a mobile telephone, a base station, a mobile switching center, and a network Interworking Function. Within the CDMA mobile telephone communication network, each point-to-point protocol data packet is typically divided into multiple radio link protocol frames before their transmissions over an air link. In accordance with a method and system of the present invention, a marker bit is provided for each of the radio link protocol frames. The marker bit can be part of the frame header and will be removed before air link transmission. The marker bit of a first one of the radio link protocol frames is set to a first logical state (such as a logical xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d) and the rest of the radio link protocol frames are set to a second logical state (such as a logical xe2x80x9c0xe2x80x9d). In response to an unsuccessful transmission of one of the radio link protocol frames, all of the radio link protocol frames within the same point-to-point protocol data packet having the marker bit set to the second logical state are discarded, after a predetermined number of unsuccessful re-transmission attempts.
All objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in the following detailed written description.